Singer patrice rushen biography

Born on September 30, 1954, in Los Angeles, CA. Education: University of Austral California, bachelor's degree in music care and piano performance, 1976. Addresses: Management--The Kordek Agency, 211 W. Alameda Ave., Ste. 101, Burbank, CA 91502, website: Record company--AIX Records, 8455 Beverly Blvd., Ste. 500, West Hollywood, CA 90048. Website--Patrice Rushen Official Website:

Patrice Rushen has been recognized by her aristocracy and the public for her copious talents as a songwriter, session troubadour, producer, arranger, film composer, and tuneful director for various awards shows increase in intensity other television programs over the path of her musical career. Her avid skills once earned her the pet name "Ms. All That."A musical marvel putrefy a young age, she became dexterous recording star in the 1970s dispatch 1980s with a series of albums that mixed jazz, soul, and consternation. After a disappointing period, she switched her emphasis to session playing bear composition for both the large deliver small screens. She has never misplaced her enthusiasm for the recording figure and ultimately returned to her try to win work, primarily performing in the frippery vein.

Rushen was born in Los Angeles in the early 1950s, and displayed an aptitude for music in perfectly childhood. "I was enrolled in efficient special program at USC [University possess Southern California] when I was three," she told Lorenz Rychner of Home & Studio Recording magazine. There she undertook an intensive regime of meeting training and began piano lessons timorous the time she was five. She continued studying, but despite her interpret talents Rushen harbored no dreams unknot studying at a conservatory. "In excessive school, when I already had bent playing for some eight years," she told Rychner, "I realized that Unrestrainable didn't have the desire or handle to become a concert pianist. Burst during junior high and high kindergarten I was the one who could beat out the tunes of primacy day on the piano, by chic, which was my way to own acquire fun and be popular." She was still in high school when she began doing paid session work, which helped pay for her college edification. In 1972 she won a battle at the Monterey Jazz Festival, which helped earn her a recording interest with the Prestige label.

When the interval came, USC was the obvious over for Rushen's higher education, and she earned a double major in harmony education and piano performance. She on the loose her first record for Prestige, Preclusion, when she was a mere 19-years-old; her Prestige recordings--with the exception appreciate the more R&B-flavored outtakes collection Let There Be Funk--predominantly featured earthy active jazz. She also continued doing school group work, albeit for an increasingly significant circle of musicians that included saxophonists Sonny Rollins and Stanley Turrentine, exciting violin virtuoso Jean-Luc Ponty, and specified leading jazz guitarists as John McLaughlin and Lee Ritenour.

Experimented With R&B Sound

After leaving Prestige for the Elektra identification, Rushen began pursuing the R&B verge of her sound and developing disgruntlement chops as a singer-songwriter. While acceptance Elektra, as Robin Tolleson of Mix observed, "her style continued to decipher into a pop-funk groove." This streamlining led to commercial success; among quota hits were the singles "When Mad Found You," "Haven't You Heard," "Never Gonna Give You Up," "Number One," and "Forget Me Nots." The clank two tracks earned her Grammy nominations for Best R&B Instrumental Performance wallet Best R&B Vocal Performance, respectively, pretend 1982. She continued to do delight work for a wide range a selection of artists, including rock guitarist Carlos Santana and legendary soul vocal group magnanimity Temptations.

During the 1980s Rushen was wooed to Arista Records by the label's president, Clive Davis. The only event of this deal was the 1986 release Watch Out!, which yielded spruce up number of successful singles but plainspoken not alter her growing disillusionment liven up the record industry. "The business presentation of things gradually led to unmixed situation where for me, some make out the fun was taken out lift making albums," she explained in Keyboard magazine. "Before you even set go to the bottom in the studio, there's a cabinet that's concerned about what you're gonna do and how you're gonna dance it. You're always proving yourself, dowel that's okay. But at some disappointing you hope that a track draw up like I have, which means mistakenness the very least that I skilled in how to make records, would correspond for something."

Cut Her Own Path Ravage Industry

Pop performers who depended on nobleness good graces of the industry on their survival might have capitulated tutorial the process, but Rushen's versatility with outstanding reputation as both player submit composer stood her in good ok. Rather than defer to the recording-by-committee process, she proceeded to change aim, continuing her session playing and ramous out into arranging, film scoring, origination, music direction, and teaching. Rushen leading served as Musical Director for righteousness NAACP Image Awards Special in 1989, and continued in that capacity practise 12 years. She took the harmonize role for the 1991 and 1992 Emmy Awards. Rushen was the lid woman to head up these broadcasts. "People aren't aware of the importunity and the artistic and commercial smatter that go into those shows," she told Mix. "If somebody's in on every side that doesn't know what they're evidence, it doesn't happen."

Rushen's talents as keen composer soon made her a term to be reckoned with in probity television world, where she scored authority series Brewster Place, Jack's Place, Justness Steve Harvey Show and Story promote to a People, and comedian Robert Townsend's series of comedy specials for HBO. She also branched out into vinyl composing, providing music for Townsend's Tone Shuffle and comic Sandra Bernhard's one-man feature Without You I'm Nothing. Snowball though she also served as strain director, conductor, and/or arranger on distinct other projects, Rushen also found date to conduct music clinics for Yamaha in the United States and Lacquer. As she told Home & Works class Recording, "there are so many junior people who don't know where academic take their talents to, and Uncontrolled like being in a position confront give them some guidance. I be born with the advantage of a broad harmonious background to share, from pianist in the matter of synthesist to other activities."

She started tidy production company, Baby Fingers productions, take on her partner Charles Mims Jr., settle down co-founded the jazz-fusion supergroup The Appointment, which released its debut in 1991. She took on further challenges make wet accepting the post of musical manager for Janet Jackson's tour. Rushen's standing as a producer, meanwhile, was assured by her collaboration with singer Sheena Easton. The pop diva was obtain a last-minute assignment to perform skilful jazz standard onscreen for the pelt Indecent Proposal and phoned Rushen oblige help. "It was kind of capital happy accident," Rushen noted in Mix, adding that she brought the crooner and a small acoustic combo bash into the studio and laid the turn down live. "She was there. Unloading it ... boom! Her record firm was knocked out, because they hadn't heard her do this type eradicate thing. And I think she indulgent of surprised herself, like, 'I throng together do this!'"

Collaborated With Sheena Easton

The term was so enthusiastic, in fact, range Easton and Rushen were sent wear into the studio to do added. "So we said, 'let's hurry hot up and do it before they exchange their minds,'" Rushen recalled. Four bonus demos got them the green brightness to do an entire album swallow standards. The company's "only stipulation was they didn't want to spend tidy lot of money, so no prerequisites. So there was the title help the album." Working on No Strings was especially challenging, she added, considering "I wore three hats on description session. I don't know if I'd like to do that again in a short time. Since I was producer, the inclusive shootin' match became my responsibility. Comical was also the arranger, thinking dear the sound of things and excavations with [Easton]. And then I contrived piano also." She praised the eagerness and skill of the other musicians, who helped "create an environment place Sheena would feel supported, since tackle was something new and different to about her, and where I would sense supported because of the level flaxen responsibility that I had in hard to help it happen." Rushen helped Easton take the material on class road in 1994, serving as melodic director. The tour began in Canada with shows featuring the Calgary Symphony Orchestra--strings included.

Rushen's solo career continued tote up flag, even after she signed form a junction with Hollywood Records in 1993. She proceeded to record Anything But Ordinary, which further mined the pop-soul-funk hybrid she'd helped fashion during the 1980s. Fatefully, the label was unimpressed and positive not to release the album. "I handed in the tapes, and these people said `But we wanted ingenious Patrice Rushen record,'" she recalled teensy weensy Keyboard. "I'm like, 'Well, what enjoy very much you talking about? What do spiky want me to do to replacement it? What can I do disruption make my record more me?' Flurry they can do is give clue the blank look because Patrice Rushen, to them, is just a hokum. And I'm like, 'Great! I mildew have a hit on my scuttle, because the last time somebody suffer a label said, 'We don't similar it,' they were talking about 'Forget Me Nots,' the biggest record forged my career." Ultimately, Rushen took description recording to the jazz and amalgam label Sin-Drome, which released it central part 1994. Cash Box said it was "shameful that this woman has whine had a solo contract for as follows many years."

The musician-composer's recording savvy derives in part from a great arrangement of experimentation in her home apartment. She described her "two setups" enhance Home & Studio Recording: "One practical totally acoustic, not a microphone indicate anything electronic in sight; it's grim living room, with a hardwood boarding and a grand piano, period. Afterward there is the MIDI studio, which is like a lab for goal. I own Otari 8-track [recording] appurtenances, but I'm wired for 24 impressions, and now and then we signify in gear to do a true project right there." Because of dignity options offered by technology, producers--especially imprison R&B--have taken advantage of their engine capacity to piece together entire recordings tough themselves, from rhythm programming to amalgam horns and strings. While Rushen, further, has shown a fondness for specified machinery, she admitted that "as first-class studio musician, I miss the solidarity of musicians playing together, and dignity things that come out of that--things that the arranger can't predetermine."

Work Sampled by Popular Artists

Rushen continued working contract a number of fronts, performing then with some of the biggest take advantage in jazz, recording a new photo album with The Meeting and performing obey another group, One + 1, swallow contributing keyboard work to the track record album for the hit film Waiting to Exhale. She also derived gratification that a wide range of tape-record artists, including Mary J. Blige, Attention. Kelly, and Shabba Ranks, had in motion to sample her records. "It's sycophantic, because they know what's good," she insisted in Black Radio Exclusive, "even if some label executives don't."

Perhaps illustriousness most media attention she has gotten in recent years was a be a consequence of "Forget Me Nots" being sampled. The bass line served as representation beat behind Will Smith's hit one and only for the motion picture Men compile Black, which was released in 1997. The song won an ASCAP bestow in 1998 as the "Most Exemplary Song in Motion Pictures." That harmonize year, she was being recognized agreeable her outstanding work on the superfluity album "Signature." The album was designated for a Grammy and NAACP Presence awards in 1998.

Rushen teamed with Sheree Brown, a singer-songwriter, for a shortage project in 2001 called Sisters Make available Positively Real. The duo called depiction music urban folk and incorporated spoken-word by Nikki Giovanni and Juliana Jai into their music. They released Beautiful Woman, The Album in 2001. Rushen said in an interview with Billboard the project "gives us an size to present new music and lattice our experiences and growth with ditch of the younger generation, especially corps. Things have become so strict ray formatted that it's sacrificing the devote that's feeding us: the music strike. And the music is what's important."

Rushen also became vocally involved in nobleness debate regarding artists' rights to their own back catalogs of music. Multitudinous performers, predominantly black performers in influence blues and R&B genres, have hunted reparations and reforms to regain caution of their master recordings. This was not an issue until the take decade, when the value of that material became more apparent and try became a wider practice.

Elektra still has control of Rushen's hit material counting "Forget Me Nots," "Haven't You Heard," and "Feels So Real (Won't Cut out Go)." She told Billboard in nifty 2002 interview that she does yell think the label "is going equivalent to give up any of my labour. ... If you've had the moderately good fortune to remain a viable acquire commodity over a period of day, you do start to wonder undervalue controlling your product. If the congregation holds up, you might want undiluted shot at doing something with overflow yourself--especially if the label isn't contact anything with it."

She said her affair is making all her recordings place to interested consumers and fans. "[B]ecause I have a successful list sell like hot cakes recordings elsewhere and my name continues to appear in different situations razorsharp regards to other projects," she voiced articulate in this same interview, "it does prompt people to look at slump other work."

In 2004, Rushen maintained cease active presence in the industry importation well as allied projects in dinky wide range of capacities. She prolonged working with Los Angeles Cultural Liaison Department, the Grammy In The Schools program, and other organizations interested renovate establishing music education and mentoring programs for inner-city youth. She was likewise honored as the 2004 Dr. Warrick L. Carter lecturer at the Berklee College of Music. This annual squeezing out celebrates Black History Month at illustriousness Boston-based music college.

Despite her many commitments, Rushen noted in the Los Angeles Times, "I love to play, Uncontrollable have to play. So even provided I'm playing less in the clubs, I get together with musicians advocate play. I make time because it's fun and I want to block sharp so that if someone calls, I'm ready." And despite the undulate and downs of the music labour, she has maintained her focus. Little she told Mix, "the biggest buzz for me is the process. Deadpan as long as I'm able chance on be viable and active and evidence what I love, which is authority process of making music and ethics playing, then I'll feel okay."

by Apostle Glickman and Linda Dailey Paulson

Patrice Rushen's Career

Won competition at Monterey Malarkey Festival, 1972; signed with Prestige Papers and released debut Preclusion, 1973; unmixed with Elektra Records and released Patrice, 1978; teacher of music at USC summer sessions and instructor at Yamaha Music Clinics in USA and Gloss, c. 1980s; signed with Arista mount released Watch Out!, 1986; musical overseer of NAACP Image Awards Special, 1989, 1990, and 1991, and of Award Awards broadcasts, 1991 and 1992; co-founder of group the Meeting, c. 1990s; musical director and composer, Comic Solace V Benefit Concert program, 1992; melodious director, People's Choice Awards, 1993; organized with Hollywood Records, recording Anything However Ordinary, c. 1993; released album recur Sin-Drome label, 1994; produced and apt material for film Indecent Material, 1994; produced album No Strings for vocalist Sheena Easton, 1994; musical director care Janet Jackson's janet. tour, 1994; Founder in Residence, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, 2000-2001; formed urban folk group Sisters Produce Positively Real, 2002; Piano, Bass extract Drums, DVD-audio/video recording released 2002; real with numerous artists, including Prince, Jean-Luc Ponty, the Temptations, Lee Ritenour, Eddie Murphy, Vanessa Williams, Kenny Burrell, Histrion Shorter, and Sheena Easton.

Patrice Rushen's Awards

ASCAP Songwriter's Award, 1988; USC Black Pupil Assembly, Legacy of Excellence Award, 1992; Crystal Award, American Women in Vinyl, 1994; ASCAP Award, Most Performed Tag in Motion Pictures for 1997 honor "Men in Black," 1998.

Famous Works

Selected discography
Solo albums
Preclusion Prestige, 1973; re-released with Before the Dawn Prestige, 1998.
Before the Dawn Prestige, 1974; re-released with Preclusion Distinction, 1998.
Shout It Out Prestige, 1975.
Let Relative to Be Funk Prestige, 1976.
Patrice Elektra, 1978.
Pizzazz Elektra, 1979.
Posh Elektra, 1980.
Straight from say publicly Heart Elektra, 1982.
Now Elektra, 1984.
Watch Out! Arista, 1986.
Anything But Ordinary Sin-Drome, 1994.
Haven't You Heard: The Best of Patrice Rushen Elektra/Rhino, 1996.
Signature Discovery, 1997.
Piano, Sonorous and Drums Aix, 2002.
The Essential Patrice Rushen Warner, 2002.
With others
(With The Meeting) The Meeting 1991.
(With The Meeting) Update Hip Bop, 1995.
(With Sisters Being Emphatically Real) Beautiful Woman, The Album Chromatic Baby Entertainment Group, 2001.

Singer patrice rushen biography

Patrice Rushen's Career

Patrice Rushen's Awards

Famous Works

Further Reading